There’s something in his eyes tonight I don’t like.
I think about Berlin’s call. He could be manipulating me, but it feels as if since my brother went down, everyone is on the verge of that.
My mind flickers down dark corridors.
Finding my uncle inside my childhood home.
It was a game we played.
Who could hurt whom first.
I remember the first time I won.
I didn’t look for him.
I waited for him to find me.
When he opened the doors to his own closet, his lips parted with surprise. I pressed the tip of the knife to his gums.
He needed stitches.
And I earned respect.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
STORM
The phone rings just as I find myself drifting off to sleep.
I squeeze my eyes tighter shut and hope it’s part of a dream, but the bleating sound blares louder and my irritation skyrockets.
It’s been a while since I slept more than a few hours a night.
Sloane left me this morning—or is it yesterday morning now—and I’ve been spending too much time in the woods of my house staring at my phone screen, watching the camera that gives me a perfect view of her front, and only, entrance.
The call dies off, but I force my eyes open anyway, because what if I missed something? I have an alarm set to go off when it catches movement from Sloane’s place—which isa lot,since she apparently has so much to fucking do—but Ineedsleep and I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t wake up at the notification.
I hold the phone over my face and see it’s almost three in the morning.
It’s not the camera I have set up at Sloane’s apartment.
It was Grey, my chemist. And if he’s calling me at three a.m., something isn’t right.
I start to sit up, then wince, and settle back down on the couch. The place where Lydia Flynn fucking stabbed me is on fire. So is the single memory of her in my mind. The talk that came after her uncle watched us leave a room together, and it was clear we had fucked around.
The dreams that infected every night, including the one before the morning Sloane saved me in the hall at West River. Lydia is there, and while the dreams had tapered off, now they’re back.
She’s connected to me in a way I can’t explain. One night with a girl shouldn’t have done that to me. But it did.
It does.
Lynx’s niece is a big problem of mine but until I meet with Dad, I don’t know exactly what I can do about her without drawing retribution onto myself and my family. And I don’t know why he never told me she was nearby.
As the pain throbs in my side, part of me wonders if it’ll get infected, but part of me can’t care because I have to figure out why the fuck Lydia is following me and what she wants. Does she live here now? Did she come all this way to find me?
Answers I’ll get soon, but not soon enough.
